Uncle Dust by Rob Pierce

If you have raised a child, you know how difficult it is. Now imagine you come by a kid because you are fucking his mother and your day job is robbing banks, welcome to the world to Rob Pierce’s Uncle Dust (All Due Respect Books).

To put it bluntly, Dust is an asshole. Pierce presents Dust with all his flaws — drinking, huge commitment issues, and money. Dust does have a few good qualities like keeping his business world separate from his personal world and having a small spot for Theresa’s 10-year-old son.

It ain’t like I like kids. Mainly I don’t like people running around batshit when I’m trying to think. Theresa, for all her great fuckable qualities, didn’t have a clue what a boy needs. Mainly, out of the tiny fucking apartment. Don’t isolate him from the rest of the world, he does that too much without your help. Don’t make him afraid of where he has to live.

Any affection that Dust may have for a kid or a woman can suddenly disappear because what Dust loves the most is robbing banks. If he’s not robbing banks, he’s in a dormant state, a monster prowling the city streets, drinking heavily to dampen the missing rush — no feelings are better than any feelings.

It was Saturday, and I needed a bank. I knew Rico could get me work, but it wouldn’t be as safe and easy as collecting, and it wouldn’t give me the rush I wanted. There was nothing like a good solo heist, the teller’s fear mixing with mine, the rush of escape—freedom.

Then the wind-down, isolation somewhere, knowing I was as safe as I could get, and I might be dead if I felt safe at all. Every sense alert, not trusting anyone, ready for whatever came along. Whoever. Maybe that was another reason I needed this. I’d been with Theresa too long, it was time to hide away a while. She wanted some of what I had, but she wanted a safer version, a version with the edge off. She wanted me cool. I needed to burn.

Uncle Dust is a howl of a book filled with energy, drinking, fucking and crime. This is the first volume of Pierce’s unnamed series about the lives of men who flourish in felonies and get off on their lawlessness. Pierce’s writing is just as ferocious and unrelenting as the men he depicts. As Dust puts it he is trying “to find a rush then try to find the next; don’t slow down, don’t come down.” Uncle Dust never comes down.